


Polymath - The Truth

by cutsycat



Series: Dictionary.Com Word of the Day Drabbles [1150]
Category: NCIS
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-19
Updated: 2018-11-19
Packaged: 2019-08-26 00:17:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16671133
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cutsycat/pseuds/cutsycat
Summary: Tony's had a crush on Gibbs for a long time. The only problem? Tony just can't tell Gibbs the truth.





	Polymath - The Truth

**Author's Note:**

> Another dictionary.com word of the day drabble. This time from 06/24/2002 for the word [polymath](http://www.dictionary.com/wordoftheday/2002/06/24/polymath).
> 
> polymath  
> A person of great or varied learning; one acquainted with various subjects of study.
> 
> This is for prompt #3 of the June 2018 Five Prompts Challenge located [here](https://ncis-discuss.livejournal.com/143408.html).

Tony shook his head. None of them could handle the truth. Tony didn’t even think Gibbs could handle it, though, at least Gibbs had seen potential in Tony when they met. 

McGee would get that adorably confused look on his face if he found out about Tony's abilities as a polymath. He wouldn't understand why Tony hid his multiple degrees. Ziva would sneer and insult him through comments she would pass off as teasing, but were really meant as insults.

Gibbs would probably just say something like “About time, DiNozzo,” and pretend like he’d always known this about Tony even though he hadn’t. Normally, he didn’t tell people about his multitude of degrees and it wasn’t a big deal. The only reason it was a problem now was that he’d been crushing hard on Gibbs for years. 

That wasn’t a problem per se, even Abby agreed that Gibbs had a super sexy body for his age. No, the problem was that he wouldn’t be able to hide his almost obsession with learning new things if he actually got together with Gibbs, which would mean his secret would be revealed. He’d been forced to hide it the couple of times that he stayed over at Gibbs when the heater in his apartment blew and that had been tremendously difficult. 

He knew there was no way that he’d be able to hide it from Gibbs if they actually started spending frequent time together dating or fucking or whatever. However, he just couldn’t tell Gibbs the truth. He knew it was stupid.

He knew that Gibbs probably wouldn’t hold it against him for keeping it a secret for so long, but he literally couldn’t do it. He’d tried. Every time he considered bringing it up, his tongue got all tied in knots and something completely inane and unrelated came out.

At this point in time, Tony knew that he’d thoroughly confused Gibbs. Gibbs couldn’t tell if Tony wanted a relationship or not because he kept playing hot and cold due to this secret. He flirted heavily with Gibbs, like so hard you’d have to be blind to miss it.

Anytime Gibbs suggested that they start dating or that Tony spend the weekend or anything deeper than a night of flirting, Tony scrambled away so fast it left Gibbs’ head spinning. It sucked. Tony wanted to tell Gibbs.

He wanted to get this off his shoulder. Hell, he wanted someone to share it with that would understand how much he loved to learn and be proud of his accomplishments. He just couldn’t tell Gibbs the truth about it. 

Every time he tried, Tony would end up at home alone banging his head against the wall in frustration at the words that just wouldn’t come. He knew why they wouldn’t come. As with most things, it went back to his childhood. 

After his mother died, Senior had sent him away to boarding school so fast that his own head had spun. Prior to that he’d been homeschooled by his mother. He didn’t realize how much more he had learned than other kids his age until boarding school.

They constantly made fun of him for his knowledge, so he buried it and played the fool and pretended that he didn’t know the answers when he did. Fortunately, grades were private and he’d learned how to fake the tests, so that when the teacher handed them back it looked like he’d gotten a worse grade than he had if someone peeked. Otherwise, he might have found it even harder to get into college than it was.

His father tried his hardest to force him to a business school, but he wanted something more diverse than that. His father refused to fund his college if it wasn’t a business school and Tony had to struggle to get a scholarship to the school of his choice. Even then it didn’t cover everything, forcing him to pick up a job in addition to college.

Still it gave him the freedom to learn whatever he wanted and he left college with a sports degree, criminal justice degree, and history degree. He didn’t stop there though. He continued earning more and more degrees as he took up a career as a police officer and then later on at NCIS. 

NCIS curbed his ability to earn degrees the most as Gibbs seemed to expect them to work 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Still it didn’t stop him, just slowed him down. He was mostly doing independent study as opposed to actual classes these days anyway. 

It was a point of pride that none of his coworkers had figured it out. Not even McGee who had seen his diploma to Harvard one time when he’d forgotten to put it away properly. He couldn’t figure out how to resolve his issue with telling Gibbs about his degrees or desire to learn, though.

He really did want to tell Gibbs, but he just couldn’t. It was physically impossible as far as he could tell. He started trying to hint at it, hoping that Gibbs would figure it out on his own with enough hints. 

Of course, the problem with this was that Gibbs was hard to read at the best of times. Tony wasn’t even sure that Gibbs had noticed the hints he’d dropped. Months had passed and Gibbs had said nothing about any of them.

He literally couldn’t make the hints more obvious without running into the same problem that tongue tied him. After 6 months passed without Gibbs saying anything, Tony started to despair. On top of that they were still stuck in flirting limbo, neither being able to take it to the next level nor back away entirely.

When a total of a year went by Tony gave up and resigned himself to them constantly being stuck between friendship and dating and never making it into the actual dating relationship that Tony thought they both wanted. After two years, he knew it was a lost cause. Of course, his heart didn’t listen.

It was still stuck on Gibbs and wanted only Gibbs. Technically, he could still get it up with others if he fantasized about Gibbs while they had sex. That kind of seemed like cheating, though, it didn’t stop him from doing it when he got desperate.

Resigned to going through life being denied what he wanted because he couldn’t talk to Gibbs about his obsession with learning, Tony continued playing the prankster at work. He stopped dropping hints because he honestly had no idea how to hint more without outright saying what he wanted and he still couldn’t actually come out and say anything. Honestly, despite his hatred for shrinks, Tony couldn’t help wondering if talking to one about this would actually help.

He hadn’t had the best experience with shrinks in the past, which he largely blamed on his father. He was positive that his father had paid the shrinks to try and rid him of the gay rather than help him deal with his grief from the death of his mother or any number of other real issues he’d had growing up as a lonely rich child with Senior as his main parental figure with a few support staff to try and help raise him. Not to say that his childhood had been bad, well the beatings had been terrible, but the therapists rarely helped him with what he actually needed help with.

He eventually just stopped trying to get help. What he couldn’t figure out on his own he saved for the housekeeper, who was only too happy to answer all of his questions if she could. Still, he knew from talking to other people over the years that psychiatrists could actually be quite helpful if you found one that worked for you. The day after Tony made his first appointment with the psychiatrist, Gibbs asked him if everything was ok. 

Tony shrugged, “Of course. Why wouldn’t it be?”

”You never make appointments with the psychiatrist.”

“Time for a change. You know how it goes.” Tony smiled breezily.

“You made an appointment with the shrivel?” Ziva sneered.

Tony snickered. “I think you mean shrink.”

“Shrink. Shrivel. They both mean to become smaller do they not?”

“Yes, but only one of them means psychiatrist and that’s shrink.” McGee explained to Ziva, before turning to Tony with a frown on his face, “Are you alright?”

“I’m peachy, McWorryWart.”

“This is not like you, Tony.” Even Ziva seemed a bit worried.

Tony would have been touched if he wasn’t so annoyed about how his private life had suddenly become public knowledge without his consent. He had specifically chosen someone from those that were made available to all NCIS agents, hoping that meant they were better than others. He hadn’t realized that it would also result in his supervisor being told about the meeting.

Did no one understand the meaning of patient confidentiality anymore? Tony glared at his team, but they just stared back at him unfazed. The one that bothered him the most was Gibbs’ gaze. 

It felt like he had disappointed Gibbs for some reason, but Tony didn’t entirely understand why. To his knowledge, Gibbs didn’t have any rules about psychiatrists. Though if he introduced a new rule specifically because Tony saw one that would be a bit extreme or at least Tony thought it would be.

Tony hoped that the appointment would blow over a couple of days after he had his first meeting. Alas, the team would not drop it. McGee and Ziva teased him about it mercilessly.

Their comments more demeaning than teasing, but Tony didn’t say anything. He could handle it. He felt Gibbs’ eyes on him constantly and didn’t know what to do about that.

He couldn't exactly tell the boss to stop looking at him. He knew this was going to turn into a bigger deal than it needed to be. Sure enough, after Gibbs dismissed everyone he demanded, "DiNozzo, my house."

Tony considered turning Gibbs down. After all, Gibbs couldn't require Tony to show up at his house during non working hours, but in the end he knew it would be easier to deal with this outside of work. He just wondered what exactly Gibbs expected from him.

Tony could smell the steaks already cooking on the fire as he walked in. He nodded to Gibbs before taking a seat on the couch. If Gibbs had a TV up here, Tony would have started flicking through the channels, but alas there was nothing like that.

Still he wasn't about to start the conversation. Gibbs was the one who demanded this. He was the one that needed to start whatever conversation he wanted to have. 

Plus, Tony still couldn't talk about his obsession with learning or his feelings with Gibbs either one. They were tied together in ways he didn't understand and it wasn't something that one session with the shrink could fix. The session had gone about as smoothly as anything involving a psychiatrist could.

Tony had been surprised to find the shrink actually listened to what he had to say. They'd spent the first session mostly talking about what Tony hoped to gain from these sessions. If the therapists had actually listened to him when he was a kid, he might not have become an NCIS agent.

Such a simple thing as listening instead of telling him what to feel could have changed so many things that it was impossible for Tony to even imagine how different his life could have been. Tony hoped that the sessions really would help. He didn't know what the future would bring.

This thing with Gibbs had him completely tied in knots. He really wanted to resolve it one way or the other. He wasn't sure what Gibbs wanted though. Why had he invited him over?

"You're quiet."

Tony shrugged, "Don't need any words with you, do I?"

"Nope," Gibbs agreed.

They lapsed back into silence. Tony wondered if Gibbs would ever bring up why he demanded Tony come over. Tony accepted the steak Gibbs handed him and relaxed back into the cushions of the couch as he ate it. 

He still had no idea why he was here. He assumed it had something to do with his psych session, but who knew with Gibbs. For all, Tony knew Gibbs was planning to retire again or something else drastic.

Despite the uncertainty, the silence wasn't charged with emotions like it would have been with McGee or Ziva. Neither of those two had reacted nicely to his scheduled meeting with a therapist. Tony knew something really needed to be done about them.

Perhaps that was why Gibbs had invited him over? They needed to discuss Ziva and McGee where they couldn't be overheard to figure out what to do about them? Tony knew that was wishful thinking, though. 

Gibbs would never discuss team dynamics with him. Heck, he probably didn't even notice the bite to McGee and Ziva's comments. It really shouldn't be a big thing, after all, but Tony couldn't help feeling a touch hurt that his getting help was met with such lack of concern.

"What's going on, Tony?" Gibbs probed lightly.

Tony shrugged. "Nothing." He wasn't about to get into why he was having counseling sessions.

"It's not nothing. You're seeing a shrink for God's sake."

"There a problem with that? It's nothing that will affect my performance in the field."

"I don't care about your performance in the field. I want to know that you're ok, DiNozzo."

"I'm as ok as I've ever been, Gibbs." 

"Tony. Don't keep this from me. What's really going on?"

Tony stared at Gibbs and against his better judgement decided to try and explain everything. He opened his mouth and nothing came out. He closed his mouth and tried again, but the result was the same. Finally, Tony just shrugged.

"Is this related to one of the degrees you're going after?"

"You know about my degrees?"

"Yep. You made it pretty obvious. I thought you wanted me to know."

"I did, but you never showed any indication that you understood."

"I didn't think I needed to. It obviously wasn't something that you wanted to be common knowledge or you would have told McGee when he was lording his degrees over you."

"These past few years would have been easier if I'd known that you knew."

"Tony. Tell me."

Now, that he knew Gibbs knew about his degrees the whole story came tumbling out of Tony's mouth. After that episode of verbal diarrhea, Tony figured Gibbs had heard more than he cared to, but that didn't stop his traitorous mouth from ending with, "I'm in love with you, boss."

Gibbs wasn't even a little bit stunned. He just smiled and replied, "About time, DiNozzo."

Tony frowned. "What happened to Tony?"

"I'll call you Tony when you stop calling me boss."

"Oh, but I like calling you boss." Still Tony couldn't help returning Gibbs' smile. 

After that the sessions with the counselor were never mentioned again. Oh, McGee and Ziva tried to bring it up a couple of times as they knew Tony was still going, but Gibbs shut their questions down and eventually they stopped asking. With his big secret out of the way, Tony and Gibbs were finally able to move their relationship from friendly and flirting into a full on relationship.

If anyone bothered to visit either of the men they would find that they spent most nights together now. Whose place they stayed at varied, but they were always together. Tony wouldn't say it was a perfect relationship.

They had their fights, after all, but it was a damn sight better than what they'd had before. It was also a heck of a lot better than he'd ever imagined it could be. The hardest problem for both of them was to not take out their frustrations with the job on each other, but that was something that only time and effort would help.

Fortunately, both of them were willing to put in the effort to make this relationship work. In some ways, it seemed too easy and like they should have been doing this all along. In other ways, it was the hardest thing Tony had ever done, but he wouldn't change it.

He had Gibbs now, well Jethro really. Gibbs was the office persona. Jethro was the one who despite a marine haircut still woke with his hair sticking up all over the place and untamable until after at least 2 cups of coffee. Jethro was the one who kissed and made love to Tony.

They were still DiNozzo and Gibbs at work, but at home. Well, all either of them would admit is that it was good and that's all anyone can ask for, really.

**Author's Note:**

> Hopefully, I'm back and will be able to keep up posting through end of December. Down to 5 stories written and ready for posting.
> 
> My 2018 Prompt collection is open [here](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/cutsycat_NCIS_Prompts_2018/profile). Just click the sign up link. ;) It will remain open until the beginning of 2019. I'm hoping to complete all the 2018 prompts by the end of 2019. Here's hoping muse cooperates.
> 
> If you are not an ao3 member, you can prompt me [here](http://cutsycat.livejournal.com/50701.html). Please follow the same rules as are listed in the above link. However, because this is a handmade prompt form(that thinks it's a poll), it is considerably more limited than what ao3 provides, so please use the ao3 form if you're an ao3 member. Please note the name option is for a name that I can say this is for so that you know it's for you. Since this is for non ao3 members it won't be true gifts, but you will be mentioned in the notes.
> 
> For any authors that want to chat and/or are looking for a place where they can toss plot ideas around and get input from people, you can come join my discord server that is specifically geared towards writing/encouraging people to write and authors. The invite link is [here](https://discord.gg/HFvwpCq). If you're not an author, but want to chat with me about writing/stories or anything else you are welcome to join. I reserve the right to boot you from my server if all you do is pester me about updates, however. *grin* Really anyone who wants to talk about writing and/or plot ideas for various stories is welcome to join. 
> 
> I've started a new [poll](https://cutsycat.livejournal.com/55450.html) regarding my series and which ones people most want to see continued in place of the Rapprochement series which I have brought to an end for now... 
> 
> Note: The Bishop Entanglement, Crazy Cat Tale, and Pregnant FBI Agent series will be continued no matter what, so you don't need to vote for those. For those who don't have livejournals just leave a comment with your responses. Thanks!
> 
> Also, I'm looking for some writing buddies. Full details are [here](https://cutsycat.livejournal.com/53610.html). It is friends locked, so you'll have to add me as a friend on lj before you can read it.
> 
> Also, Drakonyashka has translated a couple of my works into Russian. [Tutelage](http://archiveofourown.org/works/12378780) and [Imbue](http://archiveofourown.org/works/12378840). Go support them. 


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